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Waiting tables and counting tips?

I have a friend who waits tables at a local resturant full time. She told me she makes well over $10 an hour with tips but her employer does not require her to claim all her tips so to agencies like, oh we'll just say WIC for instance it LOOKS like she is making $800 a month when in reality she is making around 3 grand a month total. I have thought about going to work for her employer part time as well since times are tough for everyone. But can you do that? Can you not claim your tips? And what about the women who baby sit full time and don't claim that income either. Is that legal? Anyways just don't want to do anything illegal. If your a waitress do you claim ALL your tips, some or non?

While you *can* (obviously) not count tips, the IRS will have a lot to say about the income tax fraud involved. It's not up to the employer to ensure that employees file accurate income tax forms, but it would be nice if they pointed out that failing to do so is exactly tax evasion.

It is up to the person, not the company, how much tip $ you claim. As long as it equals up to the minimum wage per hour. So if she makes $3 per hour and minimum wage is $6.50, she only has to claim an additional $3.50 per hour that she works. The more you claim, the more taxes they take out. Hair dressers, waitress, ect, NEVER claim all their tips, they would be crazy too.

No, legally you cannot not claim your tips. I used to waitress and bartend and usually what we all did was claim our credit card tips and just pocket the cash ones. Some people don't claim any tips at all, but that is not very smart.

From what I understand and from my past experiances, all you must claim is 10 percent of your sales if the company keeps a record of each server,if not you must claim 10 percent of your tips, alot just claim there credit card tips because that is traceable.

Answer by
Anonymous
at 5:13 PM on Jun. 6, 2009

i worked at a pizza shop and we only had to claim 8 % of tips. and after we got new computers it had a formula it did for how much the waitress would claim based on how many/the price of orders. i believe this is legal because they were very by the book but i'm not positive on that. and the drivers just had to claim a dollar per delivery. i think it might just be up to the store as long as the employees claim something.